The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to heat sink and air flow technology for computer servers and, more specifically, to a system and method for air cooling data storage drives using thermo-coupled heat sinks and laminar air flow.
Data storage is a key component of the digital world. Storage enclosures or storage servers with multiple data storage devices, for instance hard disk drives, store and provide access to a wide range of content and functionality, everything from digital copies of movies to software programs to healthcare records. Hundreds and even thousands of enclosures are often housed together, in data hosting facilities, in vertical equipment racks capable of holding multiple enclosures or servers.
Servers with multiple data storage devices consume a significant amount of electricity and also generate a significant amount of heat. This heat poses challenges and risks such as, for example, to the operational health of the server, or to the power consumption and cooling of a data hosting facility. If, for example, the temperature of a server or a storage device within a server rises too high, the data storage device may fail. Consequently, data hosting facilities spend a significant amount of money on cooling equipment and electricity.
Server manufacturers have responded in different ways to these challenges. Some known data storage devices are now engineered to reduce the amount of electricity they need to operate and to reduce the heat that they generate. However, in some known systems, the number of data storage devices within a single enclosure (i.e., the “device density” of the enclosure) has been limited to alleviate heat concerns. While this reduces the heat generated within an enclosure, it also limits the storage capacity of the enclosure, and so increases the number of enclosures necessary. As such, the size and expense requirements of the data hosting facilities likewise increase.